


Little Ship of Dreams (Trapped Bird Remix)

by SegaBarrett



Category: Othello - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friendship, Jealousy, implied major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 02:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7415515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe they're all trapped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Ship of Dreams (Trapped Bird Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fault-lines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/37615) by [La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire). 



> Disclaimer: I don't own Othello (though I guess it's in the public domain anyhow now?) and I make no money from this. I hope I didn't change this too much from the original fic - I really loved it.
> 
> A/N: Title from "Dreamboat Annie" by Heart.

Desdemona tells Emilia about the trapped bird. It’s one of those things that has stayed with her, that has haunted her.

“I was working part-time, retail. There was this big UPS box, this big metal bin, where people could drop off mail in it, and one time my co-worker tells me, there’s a bird behind there. So a bunch of the guys all lift the box and move it so the bird can get out. And the bird hops out and starts sort of staggering down the street. Like he can still fly, but he’s been trapped so long that he doesn’t remember how.”

Emilia looks over at her and cocks her head to the side.

“What are you talking about, Mona? Everything’s fine, isn’t it? We’re all happy.”

Desdemona nods. 

“We’re happy,” she repeats.

But it sounds like she’s speaking the words underwater.

***

There is beauty in the world when Othello speaks.

When she thinks of how they met, it seems a dream, and a far off one at that. He is a man who rode in from far away on some sort of white horse – a white BMW, in fact – to move in a flash from simple graduate student to the lead author on three research papers in a year.

Her father hadn’t approved. He had, in fact, thrown what Desdemona filed away as an overprotective hissy fit. He had told Othello that she’d turn on him one day too.

She pushes it away now – what a nasty thing to say. But she understands the logic behind it – it must be hard to have a child grow up and move away from you.

She’s willing to qualify and justify it, because on that level it makes sense, even if it still hurts when it slithers into her mind.

She doesn’t want to think of the hurt, of any hurt.

Because there is beauty in the world now.

***

She trusts Emilia, truly she does, in a way she never really trusted friends growing up. There had always been that fear of being backstabbed, of being talked about behind one’s back, because Desdemona had not always been fair and sought-after and crooned about but had once been gangly and gawky and awkward.

Now she is held up as some object of perfection by Othello and complimented by Cassio and sent gushing texts by Roderigo. 

It’s all overwhelming. She finds herself looking at herself in the shower, trying to figure out what is different. Not that she would tell anyone, of course. Such things are embarrassing.

She focuses, in the days, on project after project, on tutoring before class and helping the undergraduates get their tests up to an acceptable level.

In the evenings she and Othello drive to a horse farm and ride the nicest horses, even though he could tame the wildest stallions.

And she tries, with all of her might, not to notice Iago when he looks at her.

But she can notice it, and she can feel it, even with her eyes closed.

Especially with her eyes closed.

***

It begins with an off-hand comment. Something she doesn’t really catch at first. They’re sitting in the computer lab, side by side. A perfect pair – never apart for longer than an hour if they can help it.

“Heard you commented on Cassio’s Instagram.”

Desdemona is hard at work placing the same gradient background on slide after slide and doesn’t really catch it at first.

“Oh, yeah. His new dog is super cute.”

She doesn’t really notice when the door shuts. Not until later, at least.

***

Desdemona slips into Othello’s apartment with her key, knocking on the wall gently as she does and flashing a big smile.

“Hey, honey, sorry I’m late. Class ran over and then some girl wanted me to look at her paper. It was weird.”

He doesn’t answer, and at first she wonders if he’s even home at all. But this has been the routine for a while now – she slips in, they talk, and then she pulls the curtains on the rest of the world.

Because the rest of the world can’t stop pounding in her head unless she is with him. 

She hears a sound behind her, a sort of creek-creek sound – the apartment makes that sound of its own accord sometimes when she’s sleeping over, like some sort of restless spirit likes to run around the place and get up to innocent but annoying havoc.

“That’s the story you’re giving me?”

She whirls around and sees her boyfriend, tall and dark and broad-shouldered – perfect, he’s said to herself on many occasions, like he was carved by a sculptor instead of tossed into the world like every other confused human – staring at her with lidded, determined eyes.

“What story?” she asks, staring at those eyes and not quite understanding, feeling as if the answer is somewhere down below the surface, where all the magma and lava hides underneath the Earth’s crust or whatever is going on down there.

“Get out of here, Desdemona. I don’t want to see you right now.”

There’s something in his voice that makes her turn and run.

***

“It’s got to be a fluke, right?”

Desdemona uses her nail to try to force something out from between her teeth, some popcorn kernel that’s stuck there and keeps sticking her in all the soft spots.

Emilia sits back in her chair and crosses her arms.

“Of course. I mean, men are stupid. You should see what Iago goes on about sometimes.” 

Desdemona shudders again, again feels eyes on her back even though there is no one besides them in the lab. But how would she ever explain it? People would think she was making it up, and maybe she is. Maybe Iago is just one of those awkward kind of guys. But there’s something in his eyes that makes her feel like a trapped bird, maybe a canary in a coal mine. 

“Oh?” she says in a small voice. “Like what?”

Because something is pressing against her neck, something like impending doom, and even as she doesn’t understand it, she sees it.

Sees Iago looking at her, only as she’s beginning to look back at him.

She thinks it’s metaphorical until she turns her head and sees him poking his into the doorway. That man never seems to smile, she muses.

Until she realizes that he’s smiling now.

She wonders for the first time exactly how her father had found out that she was seeing Othello, considering the man hated facebook and never answered the phone, remembers the huge argument it had led to, the ultimatum and her decision to move out on her own.

Othello’s promise to put a ring on her finger.

“I better go, Mona,” Emilia tells her, scooping up her books. “I’ll text you later.”

***

Desdemona sits on the subway, shuffling through her purse and trying to figure out what message to send to Othello to sort this all out, to calm the doubts that have led him astray.

It’s distressing to think that any man, even the best man, can have jealousy wriggle inside of him like a mosquito poking inside him. 

Maybe women were more trusting, she mused, or maybe not. 

She throws her wallet to the side, her diary next, rifling for her phone.

She must have left it somewhere, maybe back in the lab. She’s already twenty-five minutes away if not more.

She sighs, hating it, hating feeling so far away and out of touch with everything and everyone. The chances are low that anything particularly important has happened in her phone’s absence, but what if it had?

And with Othello acting so weird recently, what if he calls and she isn’t around to answer?

Desdemona presses her fingers into her temples and attempts to breathe. She’ll have to track it down tomorrow.

***

“Mona! Listen. I have something important to tell you – I messed up, I messed up, and I’m sorry.” Emilia’s words are falling over each other, and Desdemona can’t make sense of any of it. She sets down her purse and turns her head to her best friend. She’s never seen her in such a state and wonders if Iago and all his creepiness has something to do with it – perhaps he had finally snapped and done something awful. Desdemona prepares herself to listen, to console, to not tell her that she needs to leave (she knows from reading that that doesn’t work, just more isolation, no good), but to help her to talk steps to be safe, to…

“Emilia, slow down, what are you talking about?”

Desdemona flashes her a smile, her calm-down smile, her everything’s going to be all right smile.

The door slams open with a bang, and she hears glass breaking.

And when she turns to see the source of it, her eyes don’t focus on Othello barreling towards her, but Iago still waiting in the wings.

Not smiling now. But waiting.


End file.
